A former Wyoming Seminary assistant girls’ wrestling coach was arraigned Friday on sexual assault charges for massaging a 15-year-old female wrestler’s buttocks.
Nina Pham, 25, of Kingston, acknowledged massaging the girl when questioned by school director of wrestling Cornell Robinson. She told Robinson if she touched the girl’s buttocks, she didn’t mean to, according to an arrest affidavit.
The girl told police she never asked for a massage and “felt increasingly uncomfortable” as it went on, the affidavit says.
Charged with institutional sexual assault and indecent assault
Kingston Police Detective Stephen Gibson charged Pham with institutional sexual assault and indecent assault of a person younger than 16 years old.
Wyoming Seminary dismissed Pham.
“Wyoming Seminary is aware of an allegation of sexual misconduct involving a coach and has cooperated fully with authorities in the investigation,” school director of communications Jill Snowdon said in an email. “The individual was removed from campus and is no longer employed by Wyoming Seminary. To protect the privacy of those involved, we will not comment further at this time.”
The incident happened Feb. 19 or 20, according to the affidavit, but police did not receive a referral on the case from Childline and through the Luzerne County District Attorney’s Office until April 10.
In an April 14 interview, the girl told Gibson she was in a gym trying to lose weight so she could wrestle at her designated weight level.
Pham opened the door to the gym for her.
After finishing her workout, the girl sat against a wall. Pham “approached her and instructed her to ‘get down,’” according to the affidavit.
She laid flat on her stomach and Pham massaged her buttocks over her clothing, she told Gibson.
Affidavit: Stopped when people entered the gym
Pham stopped the massage and moved back when two people entered the gym, the affidavit says.
Both people saw Pham rub the girl’s buttocks.
When the coach saw them, she stopped the massage and told the girl to “check her weight,” the people said.
“One person also mentioned that he had observed coach Pham frequently present in the gym and in the vicinity of (the girl) every time she was there, but not necessarily when other girls were there,” Gibson wrote in the affidavit.
Gibson also reported that the school’s former girls wrestling head coach, Bret Fry, told him the same story about the assault, which Fry reported to Robinson.
In an interview with Gibson, Robinson described Pham as “socially awkward” and said the young wrestler told him Pham massaged her lower back, buttocks and legs.
Fry recruited Pham to coach at the school. In April, he was named head women’s wrestling coach at King University in Bristol, Tennessee. Fry’s Wyoming Seminary teams have won two national prep school championships since he became coach in 2021.
“Wyoming Seminary is aware of an allegation of sexual misconduct involving a coach and has cooperated fully with authorities in the investigation,” school director of communications Jill Snowdon said in an email. “The individual was removed from campus and is no longer employed by Wyoming Seminary. To protect the privacy of those involved, we will not comment further at this time.”
The school welcomed Pham as an assistant coach in December, according to its Facebook page. She starred in women’s wrestling for Wayland Baptist University in Plainview, Texas. She won National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics championships at her weight (101 pounds) in 2021 and 2022 and finished second in 2019.
Gibson’s affidavit never mentions Wyoming Seminary by name, but the school either employs or employed people named Bret Fry, Cornell Robinson and Nina Pham. Snowdon also sent her email to WVIA News after a reporter asked about Pham’s status.
